While the trailer promises more monsters, more robots, and more laser swords than the first Pacific Rim managed, there’s a very human heart at the center of its story DeKnight revealed to Entertainment Weekly.

“One of the important things we wanted to show in this movie is that it doesn’t matter where you’re from,” the director said. “It doesn’t matter who your parents are, it doesn’t matter the color of your skin, your religion, your sexual orientation, you can make a difference and you can actually be a hero, that it’s the human inside the Jaeger that is super. It’s you times a thousand.”